[PoonTang]

Today i did a 32G Water change so that I could totally clean out my sump. There was still some carbon dust stuck to things and a small amount of detritous in the corners etc. I wanted to make sure there were no sources of Nitrates coming from the sump.
Parameters this week: Cal-440 Alk-11 Mag-1260 Nit-5 Phos-0
I dosed 1 ampoule of Strontium this week.
Observations this week: Not much change, Algae is still non existant, coral colours are changing slowly, some Blue tips are starting to show on some. Yellow acro is now green. Blue Milli is a fugly white/brown, and 1 acro seems to have perhaps suffered a case of pollyp bailout on the tips of the branches. Hard to describe but the tips have seemed to quit growing upwards and are now getting thicker as the tissue on the stem seems as if it wants to grow up and over the tips and envelop it. Very wierd.
And for those that are interested in a comparison so far of the ASM Vs. ER skimmers. The ASM is way easyer to clean out and way more stable to changes in water level. When i shut my return pump off the sump fills up about 2 " above normal and the ER floods its cup but the ASM doesnt change at all. I will keep fiddleing with both in an effort to fine tune the skimmate but the ER seems to be very fussy on how wet you can run it without overflowing it and it is too dry for my liking. The ASM currently pulls out about 2X the amount but it is wetter and lighter.
I may step up my dosing/WC schedule now to every 5 days in an effort to get the Nitrates right down. It would appear that the sand and/or rock may be a bit of a sink. Michael, feel free to chime in here on how you think the best course of action to continue on here would be.